Umbra
by mcdorfman
Summary: Meet Sara Malik: Billionaire playgirl. High society darling. Mercenary warlord. When a Batarian warlord starts picking fights, Malik and the Umbra all but declare war. But can she get to her enemy before a team of Alliance Corsairs do? Set during the events of Mass Effect 1. OC Fic. Rated M for violence, swearing, and all the other good stuff. F/F at first, then later F/M and M/M.
1. The Complicated Life of Sara Malik

_Author's Note: Hola! It's Jonathan here, with a new story. I was working on the rewrite for my other Mass Effect story, Those Who Fight, when I got this idea here. Don't ask how, it just popped in there. Anyway, here we are, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had writing. Depending on how you see it, this may or may not be AU. I don't know if that bothers you, but there we go. This'll involve some F/F pairing, as well as some M/F, M/M...possibly multiple partners, you never know. And as you've noticed, this story is rated M (for Mature) due to violence, swearing, sex scenes, as well as subjects such as slavery (it is mainly set in the Terminus Systems, after all). So if any of that bothers you, **STAY AWAY!**_

_Enjoy! And everything that's Bioware's is Bioware's. Everything else is **MINE!**_

**Umbra**

_**A Mass Effect Fanfiction by mcdorfman.**_

**Chapter One: The Complicated Life of Sara Malik.**

It was a beautiful day in Nos Astra. But of course, to the human riding in the air taxi above the city's skyline, a lot of Illium's days were beautiful. She loved the way the light of the sun reflected in the skyscrapers when it was at its apex, like a hundred rainbows radiating everywhere, surrounding the city with colour. She loved the nights of Nos Astra even more, when the city becomes a little more…dangerous. Darker. As if Nos Astra had two faces, bright, colourful and open in the daytime, and when night comes so does its seductive side, where all who dwell within the city's palatial estates and high-rise apartments become entirely different people, revelling in their true selves in a haze of drugs and sex…and oftentimes blood.

Sara Malik often appreciated the similarities between the city and her own life. But not today, for right now, she was running late for a most pressing engagement.

_Maera's gonna kill you!_ her mind yelled at her, already picturing the disapproving frown on her asari girlfriend's face. _Can't this damn thing go any faster?! A crippled elcor could move faster than this!_

Her inner tantrum ceased when she heard a ping coming from her omni-tool. It was her father, she noticed, wishing to chat with her. _Calling about that damn fundraiser,_ she thought, choking down a sigh before it escaped her mouth. _Again._

Deciding to get it over with so she could put both of them out of their misery, she answered the call. Her omni-tool glowed a bright orange across her forearm as her finger pressed down on the 'Answer Call' on the haptic interface. A flat, holographic screen materialised from the display, showing Malik the face of an older man, whose handsome, oval face he shared with his daughter had gone to fat and age many years ago. He shared many other attributes with his blood; the same chocolate brown eyes, the same dark skin of their shared Pakistani-American heritage, the same colour hair, though his contained a little more grey than her own.

Samuel Malik smiled through the screen. "_Sara_!" he said. "_So good of you to finally answer your comm! Not as if I was trying to reach you for two days, or anything_."

"Sorry, Dad," she replied, running a hand to the back of her head. "I've been busy lately."

_Debris flew across her as the grenade impacted the wall she took cover behind. She grunted as some of the larger chunks hit her shields. In reply to the challenge those Eclipse bastards have issued, Malik brought up her assault rifle and unleashed a hail of bullets, laying down suppressing fire with the rest of her squad. She held a Hahne-Kedar Lancer, just like she trained with back when she served in the Alliance. Her rifle ceased firing, a sign that she was shooting longer than she should, so she went back down to cover to let her weapon cool down, but not before she Lifted some unfortunate asari merc with her biotics, allowing one of her squad to gun her down. _

"_Claymore Squad, this is Sabre Actual!" she yelled through her comm, using the received pronunciation of her false accent, the one she used on the job. "We're pinned down! Get you're your asses over here and help us! Broadsword, you break off and go around! Flank these Eclipse bastards!"_

"_Busy doing nothing, I wager_," Samuel let out an amused chuckle. Sara always was his daddy's girl. Or so he thought.

"Yeah, that," she agreed with him, lying through the back of her teeth. She did that a lot, she noticed, but that was the price for living a double life. "You have no idea how time-consuming doing nothing is."

"_Oh, to be young again_," he chuckled once again. "_So how is Illium_?"

He always began with small talk. How she was. How was the Terminus Systems. The kind of small talk a parent often has when their child was travelling the galaxy. "Oh, you know," she answered noncommittally. "It's hot, but it's a nice dry hot. Not like Bekenstein at all. And every day I discover something new and exciting. You know what 'Azure' means here?"

"_Say no more. I can guess_," she saw him bring his hands up, as if he didn't want to hear another word about his daughter's private life. Which was a good thing if he was really curious as to what Sara's private life involved.

"_Enemy engaged," Malik heard the electronic voice of an Eclipse LOKI Mech behind her and her squad. There were half a dozen of them, all closing in on them in their direct, methodical manner, taking shots at them with sub-machine guns. She growled as her biotics flared, as had the other biotic soldier in her squad. The other biotic, a turian, Warped the mechs as they advanced, unmindful of the dark energy that was slowly disintegrating their bodies. Malik Threw them across the room, ordering her men to take cover as the biotic explosion destroyed their robotic assailants._

"_Incoming!" she shouted as she looked up, taking notice of the Eclipse gunship bearing down on them with an YMIR Heavy Mech attached to the underside of its hull._

"So what's up?" she asked her father, already knowing the answer. "You didn't call just to ask about my adventures in the Terminus."

"_About the fundraiser next week_," he began, shaking his head at the groan he heard from his daughter. "_I know. You hate going to them. But your mother would_…"

"_Step_mother," she corrected him. It wasn't as if she disliked Julia. Far from it, Sara thought she was lovely, in a stuffy, formal kind of way. But she just didn't see the point in referring to her as something she was not, regardless of who she replaced in their family.

"…_would like to see you at one of these things, from time to time_." Samuel finished, ignoring his daughter's correction. "_And I'd like to see you in person, too. You can't stay in the Terminus Systems forever, you know_."

"I know, dad," she replied with a heavy sigh, knowing full well she'd rather live here than boring old Bekenstein, where nothing happens unless some society get-together for the insanely rich and dishonest. Here, in the Terminus Systems, Sara Malik was alive. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll think about going. Okay?"

Samuel sighed. Not the answer he was looking for, but the one he expected. And besides, what was he to do? Send an army of mercenaries over to Illium to drag her back to Milgrom kicking and screaming like a petulant child? Sara smiled slightly at the image in her head, thinking it'd be funny if he did and hired her own outfit to do the dragging.

"That'll do, I guess," he said. "If it helps, Bethany is coming from Earth to be here. I know how you two like to get into trouble, and it'd be nice if you took the time to see_ her_, at least."

Her smile widened at the mention of her cousin and best friend. She and Bethany used to be a menace when they were kids. Perhaps this fundraiser thing wouldn't be so bad, after all.

"I'm still thinking about it, Dad," she told him as she noticed the aircar descending to the busy streets below. "Look, I gotta go. I have a date."

A date she was thirty minutes late for, in fact. Not as if that was anything new in her love life.

"Copy that," replied Samuel, offering his daughter a playful salute. "You take care, sweetie."

"You too, Dad," and with that she cut the comm while offering the asari taxi driver her credit chit. She disembarked with a polite 'thank you' from the driver, setting her feet on the ground as she stood before the restaurant that was her destination. It was one of the higher-end places, one of the more expensive places. But then again, the majority of the various eateries on Nos Astra were cut from the same cloth. Personally, and despite her family's immense wealth, she felt more comfortable eating at a Fishdog Food Shack than a place like this. But it was her girlfriend's choice, and Sara does have a lot of sucking up to do to make up for being late…for the umpteenth time.

"You're late," said Maera sullenly as she saw her human girlfriend be escorted to their table by a doorman, playing with the glass of Thessian Red she had been nursing for the past ten minutes.

"I'm sorry, honey," apologised Sara, placing a gentle kiss on the asari's cheek before taking a seat. "Traffic was murder." That was a lie, so like many others.

"Traffic's _always _murder with you, isn't it," replied Maera, bitterly. It was not a question.

Sara bit her lip. While she would never apologise for the lives she leads, she found it difficult sometimes to reconcile them both; the boring rich girl ex-Alliance marine and the dangerous mercenary leader. And it pained Sara to keep the other side of her from Maera, but she wouldn't understand. What was she to do? Tell her girlfriend she was living a double life, that she travels the Terminus Systems with her own personal mercenary outfit, shooting people for a paycheque, because she found normal civilian life to be so insufferably monotonous? That she craved excitement and adventure, the kind she can only find when she's crushing a man's ribcage into something the size of a coffee cup with her biotics, or fighting for her life against pirates and slavers and other mercs in some Terminus warzone?

_It felt as if time had stood still when the gunship released the Heavy Mech behind their lines, dropping like a stone onto the rubble-strewn ground. "ONLINE" it rumbled as it unfolded from its unwieldy box configuration. The Mech's weapons unleashed a firestorm of flying metal on the squad as it lumbered toward them, as the smaller mechs had. "Take cover!" she ordered her men as the first volley sped through them. She saw three of her men go down, never to come back up. One of them was her fellow biotic, she saw. Malik scanned what remained of her squad. "You and you, with me. We're taking that thing out." she ordered pointing to the two mercs nearest to her, leaving only three to deal with the Eclipse mercs. _

"_The rest of you, hold this position!" she told them amidst the sound of gunfire and explosions. Another grenade impacted the wall, forcing them to take cover from the debris, though one of her men fell after a bullet hit him in the shoulder. He was still alive, being helped back on his feet by a squadmate. "You hold this position, no matter what!"_

"Well?" demanded the asari. "What's your excuse this time? Not that it'll sound anything like the truth, anyway."

_She has me there_, Sara thought. She slid her hand to cover one of the asari's. "Maera…" she began.

Maera snatched her hand away, not wanting Sara to touch her, right now. "No, I want to hear it!" she said loudly enough for those sitting nearby to hear. Sara ignored them as they turned their heads to watch the show. "You don't work, and yet you're constantly disappearing for days, even _weeks_! You don't tell me where you go, when you _do _tell me it's always a lie…and when you come back there's always a healing bruise, or scratches, or…Goddess, I thought for a moment there was a _gunshot wound_ in your arm the last time! What do you do with yourself?!"

Now might not be the time to explain how she's the clumsiest girl in the Terminus Systems. And to be fair, that was a gunshot wound in her arm, a shotgun pellet, to be precise.

"No, on second thought," Maera saved her the trouble. "Don't tell me. It'll be yet another lie, maybe something involving a masked vigilante this time, or some other human cultural oddity."

The asari breathed out a heavy sigh as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Look, Sara," she began rising from her seat and getting ready to leave. "I like you. A lot. You're beautiful and you're funny… But I'm close to the Matron stage of my life. I want to settle down with someone, I want a family…and once I thought I could have that with you."

"Maera, honey…"

The asari shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to be with someone who lies to me while she's out doing Goddess knows what and acting like a wild Maiden. Give me a call when you're ready to grow up."

And with that, Maera was gone, from the building, and from Sara's life. Sara just sat there, stunned. She had no idea Maera was so serious about her. She liked the asari a lot, too. She was a woman who at least made her want to _try _to settle down and be content with what she has. And she wasn't getting any younger. _Okay, I'm twenty-seven. But still! _Maybe one day, Maera could have been Mrs Maera Malik. Sara let out a short, sad laugh. _Yeah_, she thought, _like that'll happen. _

But yet again, her other life, her exciting life, got the better of her personal one.

Sara decided that one night stands were easier in the long term. No complications.

Without even reading the label, Sara grabbed the bottle of wine on the table and drew deeply from it. It was all she could do not to spit it back out again. She thought the taste was horrible, like vinegar mixed with lemon juice, so she read the label to see what it was. "Thessian Red?" she hacked up, as if there was a sour taste in her mouth she couldn't get rid of. She hated Thessian Red.

She took another draw from the bottle, retching audibly as she brought up her omni-tool, fingers dancing across the haptic interface. "Dad?" she began when her father answered the call. "About that fundraiser…count me in."

"_Covering fire!" she ordered her escort as they made their way through the rubble and the ruined prefab buildings, closing the gap between them and the YMIR Mech. Her men took cover behind some of the larger pieces of debris and opened fire with their Lancers, while Malik brought up her omni-tool and activated her Tech Armour, holographic ablative armour for that added protection against heavy firepower. As her men got the mech's attention, it fired a couple of missiles at them, but thankfully, the rubble they took cover behind was thick, and all they had to really worry about was splash damage to their shields._

_Malik ran across the battlefield, around the mech while she tried Overloading its shields so she could get a good shot in with a Warp field. The shields were too strong for a single Overload to do the trick, so she took cover and let loose with her own rifle. She Overloaded it again, but still no luck. What she wouldn't give for Claymore Squad to show up right this moment._

_And just like that, her prayer had been answered. She saw the trails of smoke coming from a couple of missile launchers, their payload impacting against the mech, causing it to rock from the force of heavy weapons fire. "Finally," she muttered before throwing a Warp, weakening the mech's armour. It returned fire toward her and her two men, taking out one of them as he foolishly stepped out of cover to shoot._

_She saw Claymore approach. Two of her heavies were reloading their launchers while the rest of them unleashed hell from their Revenant LMGs. And with the heavy combined fire, the YMIR exploded in a brilliant display of fiery wreckage._

"_Claymore, with us!" she yelled from her cover, moving back to the rest of her squad. It didn't take long for herself and Claymore to join up with the rest of Sabre Squad and take the fight back to the Eclipse. _

"_I will destroy you!" she heard one of the Eclipse biotics yell before taking a faceful of missile, along with three of her friends who were standing nearby._

"_Move forward!" yelled Malik under the heavy fire, and under such overwhelming firepower they moved forward toward the enemy, step by terrifying step. It was them that Malik noticed the Eclipse taking fire from another direction. It was Broadsword Squad, finally able to flank them. They had them now, and the smart thing the Eclipse commander could do, right now, was either retreat or surrender._

_They opted to retreat._

_It was a hard, long fought battle, but they won. The Eclipse were surprisingly competent this time, Malik noted. They were not known for their discipline, preferring to fight their battles using discrimination and stealth. And ungodly numbers of mechs. But they did outnumber her forces by a considerable margin, and there was strength in numbers, after all. But it didn't matter. She won, and her employer would be pleased to hear it._

_Just another glorious day in the Umbra._

* * *

_Author's Note: Stay tuned for Chapter Two!_


	2. High Society

**Chapter Two: High Society.**

"_This is Sibyl Channing, with Alliance News Network. I'm standing outside the Malik family home in Milgrom, on Bekenstein, as household staff prepare for an event tonight which hopes to raise funds for the survivors of the geth attack on Eden Prime, one month ago. The attack, believed to have been headed by rogue Spectre agent, Saren Arterius, was…"_

"Off," came Sara's voice from the dressing room of her Milgrom apartment. The vid-screen flickered into nothing, leaving her in silence. The attack on Eden Prime was practically the only thing ANN talked about these days, plus anything related to it, such as her father's fundraiser, a party-slash-auction, for the colony's survivors. Ratings soared when colonies were attacked; by pirates, batarians…it didn't matter who, just that it happened. And that it was really, really bad.

"Wonder what they'd say about the crap I do out in the Terminus," she muttered, scoffing at the idea, though strangely comforted by it.

_She could cut the atmosphere with a knife. The air was so thick in this room that she could barely breathe in this planet's oppressive heat. But not only that, there was the atmosphere she and her men set up themselves, making the room even more oppressive with the single light shining down over their prisoner._

_Malik paced slowly before the man who sat before her. He was bare-chested, bound and gagged. And she cut quite the menacing figure, which was the point, clad in the black and red armour of the Umbra, her mercenary group. Her deep blue eyes peered into her prisoner's with a certain coldness to them. _

_Malik was wearing coloured contact lenses, of course, to hide the warm, brown eyes her father gave her. She found that the simple disguises were the best, and even once made a joke about Clark Kent eating his heart out when she first tried them on. All it took to look unrecognisable was little more than a change of hair, some lenses, a suit of armour and a fake accent. And because of these tools at her disposal, she looked nothing like Sara Malik, ex-marine and daughter of a Bekenstein shipping magnate._

_To her men…and to her enemies…she was known as Sara Griffith, leader of the mercenary company Umbra._

"_Your boss has been a very naughty girl, mister Reeves," she told her prisoner, her voice giving nothing away of her natural American accent, only the received pronunciation which flowed past her mouth as flawlessly as if she were a genuine Englishwoman. All part of the disguise, of course. "Taking slaves from the Skyllian Verge and hiring Eclipse fools like you to guard them for her when we come to take them back. And _now_ that we've taken them back…at great cost…she then refuses to face the consequences of her actions."_

"_What a bitch," followed the other one in the room, a turian named Septimus Arra, her chief lieutenant. Malik could tell from the look on her employee's bare, unpainted face that he was going to enjoy what was going to come next._

Umbra takes care to keep most of their troublemaking away from the civilised parts of space, where ANN, Westerlund News, or any of the other Citadel networks have no eyes or ears. Nobody cared what happened in the Terminus Systems. Not like they care about Eden Prime, right now.

The public couldn't get enough news of the attack. It was like eye candy for most of them, full of shock and drama. It was the same thing with the Skyllian Blitz, seven years ago. Of course, the Blitz was a big thing, when the Verge and the Alliance colonies within were invaded by one of the largest armies of pirates, slavers, and mercenaries ever to exist. The Blitz came to a turning point on one colony in particular. Elysium, whose colonists were rallied by a single soldier, and driven off the invaders with a swift kick up their collective rears.

And they were treating this attack as they did during the Blitz. But Sara wasn't overly concerned. She felt bad for the colonists of Eden Prime, of course, but at least she could take comfort in the knowledge that justice will be done. The Citadel Council, in all their collective wisdom, has put the first human Spectre on the case.

The hero of Elysium, himself.

Commander Shepard.

But right now, there was something more important, right now. A difficult choice had to be made.

"Do I wear the red dress, or the black?" she asked herself, holding both garments in her hands.

* * *

An hour later, and her aircar landed gently beside the others which belonged to her father's other guests. Already, members of the press swarmed to her car, cameras flashing in so rapid a succession as to rival an assault rifle's rate of fire. Sara groaned. Here, on Bekenstein, it was the businessmen, and the relatives of businessmen who were the celebrities, not models or actors or even those who earned their fame by playing sports, or discovering something new and miraculous.

Bekenstein had the highest number of millionaires and billionaires in any of Earth's daughter worlds, from shipping magnates like Samuel Malik, to people who own factories that made binoculars. And the media followed their triumphs, their failures, and even their scandals here as they would any other famous person anywhere else in the galaxy. Sara held the same kind of celebrity as one would expect from the Royal Family, or someone else cut from similar cloth.

_Which was pretty much exactly who I am to these people_, Sara realised. Her father was one of the richest men on the planet, after all.

"Well, better greet the adoring masses," she muttered before plastering on a bright smile and stepping out of her car. She decided on the black dress, which matched nicely with her black heels. The dress, if one could call it that, 'vest' may be more accurate, one which left her arms and back bare which showed off her tattoos quite nicely. It also was tightly fit and cut scandalously low, threatening to show off her modest breasts for all to see if she moved the wrong way. _Not as if my girls have much to show off, but let's not tempt fate, shall we? _she thought, wishing for a moment that she should have picked the red dress instead, but then decided against it. The red one was even _more_ scandalous.

"Good evening!" she smiled brightly for the cameras, waving to a few of the gathered reporters. "So glad of you to join us."

"Miss Malik," began one of those gathered, a man from Westerlund News. "What are your thoughts on the geth attack on Eden Prime?"

"So horrible," she answered truthfully, brushing away an errant strand of her long, deep auburn hair. It was a wig, of course, bonded to her scalp and looked as real as if it were her own natural hair. She found it necessary to hide the shorn locks of her natural dark hair, to further distance the connection between her two very different lives. It wouldn't do to get found out.

"And it was so unexpected too," she continued. "The geth have stayed behind the Perseus Veil for centuries, and now they've come out to pick on the FNG's of this galaxy?" She shook her head. "But my thanks goes to the first human Spectre, who will get to the bottom of this, I'm sure."

"Since the attack, people from all over the Alliance have decided to sign up for military service. In light of this, do you intend on reenlisting?"

Sara shook her head again. "I'm afraid not," she said. "While I enjoyed my stay with the Alliance," that was a half-truth, "I feel that time has come and gone. And besides, the Alliance military is more than capable of anything it's called on to do without little old me, and I wish those recruits the best of luck."

"What are you bringing with you tonight, Miss Malik?" that question came from a salarian from the Citadel News Network.

Sara looked down at the glass case she had cradled in her arm. She brought it forward for the cameras to see. "Just a little something I bought during my stay on Illium," she said, smiling. Inside the case were a pair of old, yet finely crafted spikes, their surfaces covered in delicate carvings of ancient battles. "Turian battle spikes, forged three hundred years ago and valued at one-point-five million credits. I intend to submit these to the auction, tonight. The proceeds of which will be used to fund the rebuilding of the Eden Prime colony."

"Speaking of Illium, Sara," said one reporter, Sibyl Channing from ANN, who wore a predatory smile on her face, more appropriate for a tabloid gadfly like that Khalisah al-Jilani than a representative of a respectable news network. "Do you have any comment on your arrest in Nos Astra for possessing red sand?"

_Arrested for… _Sara had absolutely no idea what this woman was talking about. Never has she even _touched_ red sand, let alone possessed it, nor would she ever. She was about to tell Ms Channing thus when she suddenly remembered.

_Ugh, dear God…_ she sighed. _I really need to fire that woman._ The woman in question was Carrie, a failed actress whom she hired to serve as a stand-in for her while she was off being a hardened mercenary. The resemblance between the two was uncanny, as was Carrie's imitation of her, her voice, the way she acted…to the unobservant, she was every bit Sara Malik…except for the fact that she often gets busted for drugs.

Sara composed herself quickly before anyone noticed. "Ms Channing, I am an L3 biotic," she told her, holding up a hand and making it glow with dark energy. "I have the real thing in my body every day. So, why in God's name would I use red sand? It's probably all some big misunderstanding. Now, please…if you'll all excuse me?"

* * *

"_Sara_!" squealed Bethany Forrester as she stepped forward to engulf her cousin in a tight hug. Bethany was a cousin from her mother's side, and she certainly looked nothing like Sara did, with her heart-shaped face and voluptuous figure, as opposed to Sara's own slender frame. They were the best of friends, growing up, and would often get into a great deal of trouble, together. Sara hadn't seen her cousin in almost a year, and she was so happy to finally see her again after so long.

"I missed you, Beth," she told her, smiling brightly as they shared a final squeeze before they were joined by Samuel and Julia Malik, her father and stepmother.

"Sara, good to see you," said Samuel, giving his daughter a hug. "You dyed your hair?" he noted.

"Oh, Sara…" her stepmother began, shaking her head slightly. "Couldn't you wear something more appropriate?"

Sara looked down at her barely existent dress, then back to Julia, looking slightly offended. _What's wrong with it? Okay, so I _may _look like a high price hooker, but…it's not as if any of the younger guests are dressed more conservatively. In fact, I think some of these guests _are _high price hookers…nah._

"Not that I disapprove," Julia clarified. "It's your life, of course. But the dress, the hair…it looks like you _want_ to draw attention to yourself."

"Nope," she answered her stepmother with a cheeky grin. "I just don't want to stay hidden."

"Well, I think she looks sexy," said Bethany, grabbing two glasses of wine from a passing servant and offering one to her cousin.

"Thanks," replied Sara, "you look great, too."

"So, cousin," she began. "Haven't seen you around in a while."

"I've been busy," replied Sara, taking a sip from her wine.

"_Go fuck yourself, Umbra bitch!" snarled the Eclipse prisoner as he struggled against his restraints in vain. Malik watched him, taking in his every movement, the way he acted, and thought something was off. This man was a mercenary, loyal only to his wallet. This was not the reaction she usually got from them when she asked questions. Usually, mercs spill their guts confessing the world when taken prisoner, anything that gets them out of their predicament the quickest._

_Odd. But still…_

"_Hmm," replied Malik, rubbing her chin in thought. "That's some pretty tough talk from a man tied to a chair and facing a couple of armed mercs." She shifted her gaze to the turian standing beside her. "Septimus," she said, "would you be so kind as to show mister Reeves what we do to tough guys?"_

"_With pleasure, boss," the turian's grin turned ugly as he drew his sidearm and planted a bullet in the Eclipse merc's kneecap. Their prisoner howled in pain, screaming his lungs out as the bullet tore through flesh and bone. _

_Malik decided to rub salt into the wound by pressing down on the bullet hole with her boot. "Tell me what we need to know!" she demanded. "You're the Eclipse commander on this planet. Tell us where to find Dahlia Dantius!"_

_The merc spat on Malik in reply, earning him a swift kick to the face, turning his nose into a bloody, broken mess. He fell to the floor with a loud crash, before Malik and Septimus picked him back up. She slapped him for good measure. "Alright, tough guy," she snarled. "You wanna play hard ball? I'm game. It may sound incredibly cliché, but…we have ways of making you talk."_

"I bet," said Bethany. "Illium must be amazing. You keep going there."

"Oh, it really is, Beth. Hey, I should take you sometime! You know what 'Azure' means over there? It's slang for a part of the asari body in some places on Illium."

"Oh, God," groaned Julia, rubbing her eyes tiredly as memories of her wild youth came to the surface. Not that she'll ever admit to it. "We'll leave you kids to chat," she said, grasping Samuel's hand. "Enjoy the party."

"We will!" replied both girls. Bethany turned her attention back to her cousin, "Where?" she asked, very much curious.

"The lower reaches," answered Sara with a grin. "Near the bottom."

"I meant where on the asari body."

Her grin became a wicked rictus as the dirty joke danced in her eyes. "So did I," she replied, drawing from her glass of wine.

* * *

The party was a huge success, Sara found, at least for those who came here to be seen raising money for the poor unfortunates of Eden Prime. And the auction which raised the actual funds drew more money than even Sara had imagined, though she was a little miffed that her turian battle spikes didn't get as much as she expected, the only buyer interested was a volus investment banker who bought the things for less than half of what she did. Though the volus was gracious enough to compliment her for her good taste in antiques, and that he planned to gift them to one of his turian clients.

She was happy that he was happy though.

Besides mingling with the other guests, she took notice of the security team watching the party. There was a lot of money here, ripe for the taking, were there anyone brave enough or stupid enough to take it. Mercenaries guarded every door, every corner, even every bathroom, eying every guest with suspicion. Sara had to chuckle to herself when she saw the logo emblazoned on their black uniforms.

Eclipse.

"Doing good work there, soldier," she told one of the guards as she passed him, fighting the urge to laugh at the knowledge that they were guarding the leader of one their biggest rivals. _Oh, the irony!_ And then she sobered up for a moment. _Well, their biggest rival on Illium._ It wasn't as if Umbra was as big as the Blue Suns or the Blood Pack, though certainly her group was bigger than the Grim Skulls and the Tiburon Rojo, perhaps similar in size to CAT6 or the Talons...

And while Umbra's foothold on Sara's beloved Illium was a solid one, it was practically non-existent on Omega or any of the myriad pirate kingdoms and dictatorships of the Terminus Systems. Sara planned to change that, though. In time, the Umbra will expand, and become a true force in the Terminus.

But Sara Malik's dreams of conquest faded into shocked surprise as she felt the hand on her rear.

"Hey, good lookin'" she smelled the alcohol on the man's breath before she ever heard him drunkenly slur his words. She turned her gaze to look behind her, seeing Martin J. Sawyer, mayor of Milgrom and administrator of the Bekenstein colony. The man had a rather unpleasant reputation for being a pig, and Sara thought it a wonder that he was elected as mayor in the first place. _But then again, I don't have a brother in law who's an MP on Arcturus._

"You're pretty hot," he slurred squeezing a handful of Sara's bottom as he spoke. "What say you and I get a room? God knows this place has a lot of 'em."

_Don't punch him. Don't punch him. Don't punch him. Don't punch him._ Sara calmed herself down with her internal mantra, though that didn't stop her fist from tightening, preparing to meet his jaw. "Why, Mister Mayor," she began, brushing away the offending hand from her body, feeling unclean as she did. "Hasn't anyone told you not to grope girls half your age? What would your wife say?"

"My wife's a frigid bitch," he replied as he struggled to stay upright, swaying to the left and right. He then fished his wallet out of his pocket. "Come on, how much are you worth? Ass like that, you must ask a lot!"

_Did he just imply I'm a whore? Fuck it. Punch the son of a bitch. Women the galaxy over will thank you for it._ And with her brain's permission, Sara turned and slugged the mayor in the jaw faster than he could blink. And as he fell to the ground, it seemed as if the entire building had stood frozen, in silence, watching the person who ran the colony be knocked to the ground. Men and women gasped in shock as the event unfolded. The hired string band ceased their playing, and all became as silent as a tomb as all eyes fixed their gaze on one Sara Malik.

"What?" she said, turning to them all. "He was out of line!"

"You fucking b…" she heard his snarling voice behind her, and she turned so she could kick his ass but all she could see was Sawyer being restrained by a tall, blonde-haired woman dressed in an Alliance dress uniform. From the way she held his wrist, Sara guessed that the mayor was about to attack her from behind. _That stupid…_

"You're drunk, sir," said the Alliance woman. "Maybe you should call it a night."

"Take your hands of me!" demanded the mayor, struggling in a futile effort to free himself from her grasp. "Or I swear I'll have your career, soldier!"

"What's going on?" demanded Samuel Malik as he and his wife came to see what the commotion was.

"Sam, this woman attacked me for no reason!" answered Sawyer, nodding to Samuel's daughter. "And this one," referring to the Alliance woman, "won't let me go!"

"This asshole tried paying for me," clarified Sara, anger rolling over her in waves.

Samuel fixed the mayor with a gaze so incendiary he could burn the Citadel out of the sky. He gestured to a couple of approaching Eclipse mercs. "Get him out of here!" he ordered.

"Yes, sir," replied one of them before they took him off the Alliance woman's hands, dragging him out the front door, kicking and screaming that they didn't know who he was. He wasn't the man paying their wages, so they didn't much care.

"And be as rough as you like!" Sara called out as they disappeared from sight. _Eclipse are good enough at taking out garbage, at least._

Julia moved to her side and held both shoulders with a gentle touch, as if she were some fragile girl. "Are you okay?" she asked her.

"I'm fine, Julia," she replied. "I used to be a marine, you know. I can take care of myself."

"I know, but…"

"Really. I'm okay." _Better than okay, actually. _Now that the anger had gone, all that remained was the adrenaline. She felt good, like she did when she's out living her other life.

"How's the hand?" asked Samuel, to which Sara flexed her fingers and wrist, as if she had had not punched a man in the first place.

"Dad, I'm not a little girl. I'm fine! Go back to the party."

She was his daughter, he could not help but be worried. But if she insisted. "Okay, everyone!" he called out to the rest of the party. "Show's over. Please. Enjoy the party!"

And with that, the music began anew, the crowd went back to mingling, and everything went back to normal, as if the entire thing had never happened. Sara breathed a relieved sigh when her father and stepmother did the same and went back to the party. She turned back to the Alliance woman, her rescuer from the bad man. "You know," she began, "at first I thought I'd hate this party. But now? Not bad. And thanks for coming to my rescue. It was sweet of you. Unnecessary, but sweet."

The Alliance woman smiled and took a step forward. "I try. It's a thing of mine to swoop in whenever there's trouble." She extended her hand. "Lieutenant Commander Kristen Rhodes," she introduced herself, "Alliance Corsairs."

"Former Operations Chief Sara Malik," replied Sara taking the offered hand before smirking at the LC, "103rd Marine Division, well…before I got discharged, that is. And didn't anyone ever tell you that swooping is bad?"

Kristen laughed. It was a rich laugh which Sara found herself enjoying. "I've heard it said, before," she said. "I don't know, it sounds like something a character in a video game would say."

"Or a work of fiction," Sara agreed.

"I don't doubt it!" laughed Kristen, before she cleared her throat. "Do, uh," she began awkwardly, gesturing to the portion of the crowd who were dancing to the delicate string music, "you want to dance?"

"Sure," replied Sara. "Anything for my 'rescuer', but not in _these_ heels. I'll break my neck in them." And with that she bent down to remove her shoes, lowering her height by a good couple of inches. Kristen, while meeting Sara's eyes before the heels were removed, now had to look down at her. "The things we girls do for fashion," said Sara as she took Kristen's hand. "Come on."

They walked to the dance floor, hand in hand, joining the others who were losing themselves in the soft notes of the string band. Sara's arms wrapped themselves around Kristen's neck, shoes in hand, while the Alliance officer's hands found themselves grasping the shorter woman's waist. Were anyone to notice, they would have noted how good they looked together. "So," began Kristen as they swayed to the music. "What is it you do?"

"Nothing much," Sara shrugged her shoulders. "Travel on my trust fund, mostly."

"_Do it," Malik ordered Septimus, who nodded as he activated the primitive blowtorch in his hand. She watched as panic etched itself on their prisoner's face, as he struggled against his bonds all the harder to escape his predicament._

"_You better tell us, or else my turian friend here will go medieval on you."_

"_First, I'll burn off your toes," said Septimus. "Then when they're gone, your fingers'll be next. Then your legs, below the knee. Then...well, you get the idea. But rest assured, human. I'll save your balls for last!"_

"_W-wait!" he said as Septimus approached him, with brutal intent to grievously harm his body. "I don't know where Dantius ran to! All I know is Sederis flew in on a ship a few hours ago and shipped her off the planet! I swear, that's the truth!"_

_Sederis. As in Jona Sederis, asari commando, founder of the Eclipse mercenary group, and all-round psychopath. The asari was a paranoid dictator who rants day and night, calling for the deaths of all enemies of the Eclipse. Malik was certain she was at least in the top ten of that list, alongside names like Solem Del'Serah and Ganar Wrang of the Blood Pack. It may have been arrogant of her to think that, though her expansion efforts on Illium were rather aggressive._

"_I don't believe you," said Malik. "Why would Sederis even bother bailing out a slaver like Dantius?"_

"_Who knows," the merc sputtered, his eyes fixed on the blowtorch in the turian's hand. "The Dantius family's big on Illium, especially Nassana, the eldest. You know that, right? Maybe Sederis plans to be all buddy-buddy with Nassana by saving her sister? Or she might have even done it for shits and giggles! She's unpredictable, you know, a crazy bitch!"_

_Septimus looked at his boss expectantly. Malik met his gaze and shook her head. "I believe you, mister Reeves," she told him, before turning her back to them, walking away. "Septimus," she said, "This has become a dead end, so I'll leave the search to you. I'm going back to Illium, to arrange for your reinforcements. Leave no stone unturned, even if you have to take on Sederis herself."_

_Septimus nodded his affirmative. "You got it, boss," he promised her. "The slaver bitch'll be dead soon enough."_

_She walked away, but not before hearing the sound of Septimus' gun firing a round into the Eclipse merc's skull._

"So," Sara began the question, "what's the Alliance doing in a dump like Bekenstein?"

Kristen chuckled, "After the geth attack on Eden Prime, people have been doing what they can to help. For this fundraiser, the brass wanted someone to 'show the flag', as it were. I'm they lucky girl they picked out to do just that." And then she added, "And this is the nicest dump I've ever been to. Better than where I'm from."

"Where's that?"

"Massachusetts," Kristen answered. "Boston, to be precise."

Sara thought she could pick out the accent. "I was born in Michigan, myself," she replied. "Dearborn. Though we moved out here to Bekenstein when I was two, and the colony just started. I don't really remember anything about it."

"How do you like Bekenstein?"

"It's boing as hell," Sara answered honestly. "These days I haul ass to Nos Astra every chance I get."

Kristen smiled as she held the shorter woman. "I've been to Illium a couple of times," she said. "On the clock, though, but it seems like a…interesting…place, but it's not exactly a place I'd retire to. So, I guess you know what 'Azure' means on Illium, then?"

Sara laughed loudly, remembering her conversation with her cousin, Bethany. "I have an idea, yeah. So…Alliance Corsairs? I never heard of them, are they a new unit?"

Kristen nodded the affirmative. "We're a special forces division," she answered. "We ship out with independent starship captains, on missions outside Alliance jurisdiction. The brass'll deny that we ever exist if we get caught, but we're supposed to be free from oversight so we do our jobs the way we want to."

"'Supposed' being the operative word?"

"Yeah. We get tied up in enough red tape to gift wrap an elcor," she chuckled mirthlessly at the joke. "But it's worth all the crap we go through just to know the bad guys are taken down."

"So," Sara rubbed the back of Kristen's neck with a thumb. "I guess you're gonna ship out to kill some geth? Give our new Spectre a helping hand?"

"No, my team and I usually ship out to the Terminus Systems. Free slaves, see that Terminus warlords are brought to justice…that kind of thing."

"Sounds like a noble goal," was all Sara could say.

"Like I say: it's my thing to swoop in when there's trouble. But I do wish Commander Shepard the best of luck taking down Saren and the geth," there was that smile again. Sara liked that smile. It was what started to attract her to this handsome, blue-eyed Alliance officer holding her. _And why not? She's good looking, she's funny…you could do worse than her as a girlfriend._ But as they danced, she had to remind herself not to work_ too _hard on that attraction, citing her recent experience with Maera, and the end of their brief relationship. It was clear that given the way she lived her life, sharing her time between being the socialite and the mercenary warlord, a long term thing just wasn't in her future. At least not without either revealing her secret, or sacrificing one life for the other.

But then again…

"Hey, you want to go somewhere else?" Sara asked, with mischief shining in her eyes.


	3. The Good Day

_Author's Note: Warning! This chapter contains **HOT LESBIAN SECKS!** Ahem... so yeah. I haven't written smut in quite a while, so I've been kind of excited about writing it (and no, not in that way you bloody pervert!). That said, I do hope you enjoy the chapter, and not just for the HLS._

* * *

**Chapter Three: The Good Day.**

The door to her apartment barely had time to clear before they entered together, in each other's arms and attacking each other's mouths. Sara dropped her expensive shoes without a care in the world before running her hands through Kristen's blonde hair, moaning at the contact Kristen's hands made with her rear.

They tore away from each other to catch a breath, their kissing was intense. "I don't…" Kristen began before being attacked by the shorter woman in her arms, "usually…" kiss, "do this on the…" another kiss for several moments, followed by a soft moan coming from Kristen's throat as Sara moved her assault down to her neck, where her collarbones met, "first night!"

Sara moved from her exploration of Kristen's flesh to look into her blue, lust-filled eyes. "First time for everything," she said before attempting to peel her new lover out of her uniform. Fingers deftly worked themselves through Kristen's buttons, then gently letting her dress coat fall to the floor. Then her belt was next to join her jacket, followed by her pants, leaving Kristen in her lace bra and panties.

"Hello, panties!" giggled Sara, not quite expecting to see something so…feminine.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sara planted another kiss on her lover. "They're girlier than I expected, is all."

"What, you expecting to see them in a camo pattern, or something?"

"_Ooh-rah_, marine!" Sara gave her a smile before pulling her to the bed, falling backwards upon her silk sheets. Kristen fell atop the shorter woman, straddling her hips as she began planting gentle kisses down her neck. Sara gasped her pleasure before sitting up from her bed, pulling her dress from her body, revealing her soft breasts to the Alliance officer. Kristen fixed her gaze upon her, as if she had just seen a Goddess before her, and she was about to worship her.

"Jesus, you're beautiful," Kristen whispered, making Sara blush.

"Just shut up and kiss me," she replied.

And kiss her she did, with as much passion as she could muster. They fell together, exploring each other's bodies amidst their gasps and moans of pleasure. Kristen's lips moved downwards to take one of Sara's soft breasts, while one of her hands moved lower to caress the skin around her navel, teasing her lover. This was becoming torturous for Sara, as she grasped Kristen's wrist and guided her to where she needed to be, and rode the waves that built up inside of her as Kristen's fingers slid underneath her underwear and found the silken petals below.

"Oh, God!" Sara gasped as she felt herself being explored gently from the inside. Kristen shifted herself from her lover's hips, positioning herself so that one of Sara's thighs pressed against the core between the Alliance officer's legs. Kristen grit her teeth at the sensation, savoured it as she moved with her lover. The rhythm between them increased, with Kristen pulling Sara into another deep kiss before she removed her hand from between her legs. Sara would have protested the sudden withdrawal, had she not seen the look in her lover's blue eyes. She watched as Kristen removed her underwear, anticipation flowing through her body like electricity as the other woman parted her thighs.

And she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of Kristen's tongue caressing her.

Sara moaned as she grasped one of Kristen's hands, their fingers intertwining, while the other went further to grasp the other woman's head as she worshipped her. She felt herself getting close to her end, her heart was beating faster than before, and her hips moved at their own volition against Kristen's lips. It was only moments after the Alliance officer decided to enter her once more did she succumb to ecstasy.

Sara collapsed into the sheets, boneless and gasping for air. She swallowed as she felt Kristen climb back over her, tasting herself as they kissed deeply, falling into each other. Sara felt incredible, she felt as if she had seen heaven, at least for a few brief moments before plunging back to the mortal realm.

She felt like she's just experienced some great sex.

"That was…" she started, before kissing her again.

"I know," Kristen smiled. "But really…I don't usually sleep with someone on the first night."

"Me neither," admitted Sara, though her brain was telling her, _You sure could have fooled me!_ "I actually gotten out of a relationship recently…"

"So…" began Kristen, pulling away from her lover, "was this just a rebound thing?"

"No!" answered Sara, sitting up, not wanting this moment to be ruined. _Why did I have to open my big damn mouth?!_ "God, no. I don't know what this was but…it was amazing."

The answer seemed to satisfy the other woman, who laid back and pulled Sara down with her. "So, what happens how?" she asked her, a hand gently stroking the warm, brown skin of this gorgeous woman with whom she shared this with.

"Now?" replied Sara, whose arms tightened around Kristen's shoulders before moving downwards to remove the bra she kept on as they made love. Brown eyes locked their gaze upon Kristen's breasts, as hands slid over the other woman's ribcage to caress such glorious mounds. "Now it's your turn," she told her.

* * *

"Hey, look at that," Sara smirked tiredly as she noticed the first rays of the sun reach her apartment's window. "I kept you up all night," she told the woman sharing her bed, with a hint of pride for her stamina. _And she wasn't too bad, neither,_ she thought as she cuddled further in the Alliance officer's arms. Basking in the glow of an entire night of mind-blowing sex.

They had been up all night, making love in any and every position they could think of, reaching the peak of ecstasy many times over, they had only spent the last hour or so cuddling, and touching, and kissing. Their need for sleep was overridden by the urge to be with one another. Sara found it strange: never, not even with Maera, not even with any of the other women she had taken to her bed, had she felt the urge to keep going, no matter how much she cared for her partners. And then here comes this handsome Alliance officer, who brought out this side of her.

She liked it.

"It's okay," Kristen yawned as she held Sara tighter to her. "I pull all-nighters all the time."

"Oh,_ really_?" replied the other woman, eyebrow raised and lips pulled into a smirk.

"Crap, no, I didn't mean it like that," Kristen chuckled as she rubbed her tired eyes with a free hand. "The work I do means I don't get much sleep, anyway. I'm used to it."

"Relax, I'm just razzing you," Sara grinned before kissing the other woman for what seemed like the millionth time. She couldn't get enough of it. "But I kinda like thinking that you're some kind of stud."

"I'm honoured," groaned the other woman, her mind now flooded with images of nights upon nights of non-stop passion. _Now there's an endurance builder if I ever saw one,_ she thought.

Reluctantly, Sara pulled away from her lover, getting up from her bed and making her way toward her dressing room. "I'm gonna go make something for breakfast," she told Kristen, who was still lazing in her bed. Sara stopped for a few moments to take in the image of the blonde lying in her bed. Her skin was absolutely glowing. "You want anything? Coffee? Bacon?"

Kristen moaned. "Coffee sounds great," she told the shorter woman. "Thanks."

"You got it."

* * *

_Alliance aid vessels touched down on the colony of Zhu's Hope on Feros yesterday, after receiving a distress call from the SSV Normandy, the vessel captained by Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre. Commander Shepard was at the scene when reports of a geth attack on the colony were brought to his attention. The colonists who have spoken to us have also mentioned a creature known as the 'Thorian' that was controlling their actions via pain induced suggestion. It has also been mentioned that Exo Geni, the corporation responsible for the colony, was aware of the Thorian's existence, and was in fact monitoring the creature's effect on the colonists. Exo Geni was not available for comment. On other news…_

Kristen listened to the news as she drew from the cup of coffee Sara had made for her. Black, just the way she liked it. Sara told her that she found black coffee to be absolutely disgusting, preferring mocha, herself. Kristen had then retorted that black coffee was the ultimate beverage, she loved the way it smelled, the way it tasted, and with that last comment Sara turned to regard the other woman with a look in her eye which Kristen had to laugh at.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," she chuckled, then went back to her coffee. Sara was cooking breakfast, now. Bacon and eggs. Kristen thought the smell was divine, but she was more interested in the cook. Her gaze moved upwards, from Sara's bare feet to the shorts-clad rear end she found to be perfect. Her eyes lingered on that particular body-part until they moved up once more, to see the yin-yang tattoo between her shoulders, poking out from the other woman's vest.

"I like your tattoo," she commented, which prompted Sara to turn her head to see where the other woman was gesturing.

"This?" she replied. "It's just something I got in my Alliance days, a crap little posting on Sirona. Not really much of a story behind it."

That was a lie. Sara had gotten the tattoo many months after she left the Alliance, just after her decision to live her double life. She found the symbolism interesting, that completely opposite concepts could be intertwined so naturally, such as fire and water, light and dark, life and death…socialite and mercenary.

"I got this one, too," she said, gesturing to the tattoo on her arm. It was the emblem of the Systems Alliance, wrapped in thorny vines that snaked across her bicep. "Not much of a story there either, I'm kind of boring like that."

"I don't believe that for a second," Sara had to smile at that. _Oh, honey…you don't know the half of it!_

"So what brought you to the Alliance?" asked Kristen, genuinely curious. Children of corporate royalty don't really choose to slog through mud and blood, like the other mortals. "Seems like an odd career choice."

"Why, because my dad's richer than God?" replied Sara, holding a hand up to stop Kristen's apology. "It's okay. I'm used to it."

Kristen chose to apologise anyway. "Sorry. Order me to storm a pirate fortress with a pointy stick? No problem. Tell me to deal with the foot in my mouth…"

"Don't worry about it," Sara said before continuing, speaking as she cooked. "I was born in Michigan, and it's not like my family _always_ had money. It was just…luck and determination, I guess, and my dad's now one of the richest men on this planet. But to answer your question, I got into those recruitment ads the Alliance airs on the extranet. You know…travel the galaxy, see interesting new worlds, meet interesting new people…and kill them…" Kristen laughed at the joke. "So I see these ads and I think to myself: 'I wanna do that.' So I sign up, went through basic in Macapa, signed up for the advanced stuff, trained as a Sentinel, and got transferred to the 103rd…where I just sat around doing nothing my entire career."

"That's pretty weird," noted Kristen. When a marine goes through advanced training, they are classed as Special Forces, a mere stone's throw away from the coveted ICT program. If Sara chose it, she could have trained with the best of the best and maybe even make N7. And even if she didn't, it was odd to the Alliance officer that the brass would train someone as Special Forces, especially someone as rare as a biotic, and then just leave her on the sidelines, without even so much as an officer's commission. Who leaves a biotic Special Forces soldier as an Operations Chief?

"I know, right? Go through all that trouble making me into a badass biotic war machine, and then give me nothing but crap assignments!" She actually has a theory on why that was. She won't speak ill of any of her relatives, but she heard about kids with parents who were rich or high ranking officers in the Alliance, who would either promote them out of some form of nepotism or cronyism, or would ship them off to the safest colonies, so daddy's little boy or girl won't have to get shot by some pirates. Never would she believe that her father, or even her stepmother, would do that to her, but the thought lingered in her mind.

But it didn't matter. The Alliance was just a stepping stone to her now, one which led her to do what she did now.

"So what about you?" asked Sara as she brought two plates of bacon and eggs to her kitchen counter, handing one to the other woman. "What got you into the Alliance?"

Kristen popped a piece of bacon into her mouth before answering, savouring the taste as she chewed. "I'm an army brat," she finally answered after swallowing. "Both my parents, my grandmother, great granddad…we Rhodes men and women have been carrying rifles since the Battle of Britain, over two-hundred years ago."

"So this is a tradition?"

"Yeah. We love being in the military, we're practically _married_ to it. It kind of plays hell with our personal lives, though, but I wouldn't change it for the world." Her smile became a little sad, and Sara wondered why. "Shame my husband didn't understand."

"You're married?" She didn't remember seeing a ring.

"Not anymore," Kristen shook her head. "We ended it about four years ago. I stayed with the Alliance, and he kept our daughter."

"Daughter?" _She didn't look old enough to have a daughter_, Sara thought, looking at the woman before her. She must be _at least_ in her late twenties, early thirties at the oldest. _But then again, Mom was twenty when she had me._

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to offload my baggage on you, especially after last night." Kristen didn't know what, but she felt as if she could trust this woman sitting before her. There was just something about Sara Malik which made her want to tell this woman everything about her life, warts and all.

Sara just put down her fork and took Kristen's hand, gently rubbing the skin with her thumb. "It's okay," she told her. "I want to know." Usually, she wasn't much interested in other people's deep, dark secrets. It seemed hypocritical to her, that she would keep secrets of her own and want to know others, especially when hers involved a double life. But oddly enough, when it came to Lieutenant Commander Kristen Rhodes, she didn't mind as much about being a hypocrite. What was it about this woman?

Kristen was quiet for a while, and then, "Hailey's her name," she began. "She's six, now. Hailey lives with her dad and his bitch new wife on Ferris Fields. Turns out it's nearly impossible to win a custody battle when you're married to your job, especially if that job means going around the galaxy killing bad guys. And it didn't help that the new wife was some high-ranking manager at Eldfell-Ashland."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," said Sara, breathing a sad sigh.

"Don't be" replied the other woman. "I trust my ex-husband to give Hailey a good life. It's just a little hard."

Sara's heart went out to this incredible woman. "Come here," she said, lifting herself off her stool and taking Kristen into her arms, planting a comforting kiss upon her lips. They felt so comfortable with one another, and while Sara swore off relationships after her break-up with Maera, she wouldn't have minded being in one with this one. _Whoa, where did that come from? You know what you do, Sara. You can't possibly try again after what happened with Maera. This is dangerous!_

But wasn't danger the point? Still, she wanted to know where this went, now.

"Hey, do you want to…go out some time?" she asked her, taking baby steps with this. "I know some great places."

"I'd like to," answered Kristen with another kiss. "But I don't think we should work too hard on this. Like I say, I'm practically married to the job. When I ship back out, I might not see you again, for…God knows how long."

Strangely enough, that could work. _And now to take bigger steps_. "I disappear all the time," replied Sara, telling the truth. "You know, explore strange new worlds, and seek out new civilisations…meet interesting new people."

"And kill them," Kristen gave her a short laugh, remembering the other woman's joke from earlier, and it was all Sara could do not to soil herself with laughter, given how_ true_ that joke was.

"So yeah, I'm never really a stationary kind of girl, either. So I guess we could…_kind of_ make it work? It'd be nice to have someone to come to after an adventure."

A part of Kristen really would like that, actually. Even though they had only just met yesterday, she really liked Sara Malik. There was something about her which made her want to be with her. It was strange. She didn't believe in anything as silly as soul mates or love at first sight, and she doubted Sara did either, but…something about them just…clicked. _Hold on,_ interrupted Kristen's mind. _Soul mates? Love at first sight? Do you really hear yourself, right now?_

Kristen actually wanted this, no matter how quickly it was happening. _Screw it, _she thought. _Go for it, I just hope you know what you're doing._

"Okay," she said finally. "How about we just…take it one day at a time."

* * *

"_Griffith, honey_!" called a somewhat effeminate voice belonging to one Robert Quentin, Malik's go-to man for the Umbra's less…military actions. He was the one who handled recruitment, advertising, working out contracts as well as handling logistics. His was a heavy burden, but he was capable and more than worth the hundred-thousand credit salary he commanded. Quentin was tall and skinny, and sporting dark skin and eyes, which he often painted with heavy make-up. Sara knew he liked to dress up, but there was nothing wrong with that. It didn't hinder his job, and in an era where a man can be with another man without discrimination, he should be able to wear whatever he damn well pleased.

But his tastes in women's fashion were not why she called.

"Mister Quentin," she said in her work voice, now sporting her natural, short hair and blue contacts. She had been meaning to call earlier, but she had enjoyed her time with Kristen that much, it took the Alliance officer's own need to return to base for her to leave. And so, after the unpleasantness of peeling off her scalp-bonded wig, she hopped in her shower and gotten dressed into something more appropriate for Sara Griffith, mercenary leader. "I trust you are well?"

"_Well as can be, sweetie_," smiled the effeminate man. "_Met this hottie at the Eternity bar the other night. Total closet case, but the man had a mouth like a vacuum cleaner_."

_And that was more information than I wanted. Ever. Guys don't really do it for me, but…whatever generates _his _Mass Effect field. _"That's wonderful, Robert," she said instead, crossing her legs while she got more comfortable in her chair. "But I was calling to request a status update."

"_Sure thing_." Sara saw Robert's painted nails work overtime over his computer. "_Just one thing of note_," he informed her with a smile. "_There's a message from Donovan Hock letting us know that our new guns will be dropped off at the Milgrom Space Port in a few days_." He paused, then, "_Milgrom…what a boring place. It's a wonder a man like Hock chooses _Bekenstein_ to hang out. Why can't he live on Illium like a normal human being_?"

"Maybe he likes boring," replied Sara, conversationally. But Donovan Hock's lifestyle and his choice of worlds were not her concern. The weapons stolen from Hahne-Kedar's Shadow Works labs are, as are the relevant mods. Three thousand Diamond Back assault rifles. One thousand Viper shotguns. Three hundred Cobra pistols, as well as three hundred Cobra sniper rifles. With her wealth, Sara could purchase weapons made by higher-end manufacturers such as Rosenkov Materials or Kassa Fabrication, but she found that one needed weapons which were rugged, reliable, and required less maintenance than Hahne-Kedar's competitors. And she certainly didn't want the crap that Elkoss Combine spewed out, that was for sure.

HKSW supplies weapons for the Alliance's Special Forces units, and has done for the last decade. The product which comes from their labs has served the Alliance admirably, and has proved, time and time again that Hahne-Kedar's manufacturing philosophy works.

To have these weapons stolen and brought aboard a ship without anyone knowing had cost her a very pretty penny. But it would be worth it to have that edge against her larger competitors.

"But this is very good, Robert!" she said, giving him a wicked grin. "Please convey my thanks to Mister Hock, and tell him they are to be distributed to the Nos Astra headquarters as soon as they are in his custody. The other half of his payment shall be transferred to him on delivery."

"_You got it, boss_!"

"Also, I am authorising a transfer of three million credits to the company accounts," she added, bringing up her omni-tool to perform the transfer. "You are to purchase as many mechs as you can with this money, with at least one dozen YMIR heavies. I'm sure this will further incentivise Mister Hock towards a prompt delivery."

"_Sure thing_," and again, Robert's fingers were a blur. "_Are these coming here, too_?"

Malik thought about this for a moment. "No," she said. "The mechs are to be distributed in equal numbers to our bases on Trident, Korlus, Sanctum, and Anhur. We need to increase our presence on these worlds if we're to expand our operations."

"_Trident, Korlus, Sanctum and Anhur. Got it_." When his task was completed, he looked through the comm screen and grinned at the way Malik's skin glowed. "_Hmmm… Somebody got lucky last night! Tell me everything!_"

Malik gave him a short laugh. "Not the time for gossip, I'm afraid," she told him. "Maybe later. But for now, I'd like to contact Septimus and request an update from him."

"_Oh, I don't know why you put up with that crotchety old turian," _he told her._ "But I'll let you get back to it. Nos Astra out_."

And with that, the comm was cut. "VI," Malik called out. "Contact Septimus Arra," she ordered.

"_Contacting_," replied the VI. Malik waited for a few moments as the VI found Septimus' comm channel. "_Online. Please wait_."

A few moments later, the screen became filled with an image of a barefaced turian. "_Boss_," Septimus began. "_Just in time. I was about to call you_."

"I suspect you have an update on Miss Dantius' whereabouts?" she asked.

"_Yeah, we're on Sharjila, now. In the Artemis Tau cluster? We put out a few feelers and the bitch peeked her head out for us to see. But…_"

"Yes?"

"_There's been a complication_," Septimus gestured back with his head, and Malik saw what was happening in the background. She saw a couple of her men beat on whom she suspected was one of the slavers. "_Somebody beat us to it. We've been having a chat with one of the assholes unlucky enough to survive, and he tells us they were attacked by a three-man squad, a krogan and two humans, headed by some guy named Shepard_."

Shepard… Malik sat back in thought. It seemed that the first human Spectre has been a very busy man, cleaning up the galaxy, one scumbag at a time. She was happy for him, but at the same time a little disappointed in her men. The Umbra got paid regardless of who killed Dahlia Dantius, but it was out of a sense of professional; pride that her men actually do the job they're paid to do. But she supposed that she couldn't win them all, even if there was no real loss.

"Alright," she said finally. "Dispose of that trash and return to Illium. Good work, Septimus."

Septimus nodded, then gestured to his men to finish the job before cutting communications. The last thing Malik saw before the channel was cut was her men shooting their prisoner in the head. She remained seated, in silence, and steepled her fingers together as she basked in how well her day has been. _Today has been a good day._

She felt a vacation was in order, actually, to enjoy the fruits of her labour. _Maybe I can invite Bethany to Illium sooner than I thought. She'd absolutely love the Nos Astra clubscene. _And then another thought came to her, followed by another smile. _Maybe Kristen too, if she can get off-duty._

* * *

Captain James Talbot of the independent Athabasca-class freighter MSV Albuquerque was looking forward to seeing the day of his retirement. This was his last run, two long, hard weeks of ferrying supplies and making deliveries between Earth and various factories and compounds his employers at Hahne-Kedar owned, and nothing would please him more than to finish his job so that he can enjoy his twilight years in peace, with his wife of thirty years.

He bought a prefab a couple of years beforehand, almost twenty miles from Thoreau Mesa, the colony capital of Intai'sei, where he planned to live there, in peace. Talbot chose the planet purely on the name: Intai'sei, which could be read as 'retirement planet' in the Japanese of which the word came from. It also could have come from the word 'intaiseikatsu', or 'secluded life', something which appealed to him and his wife greatly. It didn't matter that it was barely habitable, to Talbot, the heat and the arid climate reminded him of his native New Mexico, only with less people to bother him.

He would sell his ship, maybe to his first officer, Hussein. Hussein always wanted a ship of his own, and he'd take great care of her. And with the money he'll get after offloading his…extra…cargo to Mister Hock on Bekenstein, he'll have enough money to put his grandchildren through college.

He couldn't wait until he retires after this run, he could almost taste that dry air.

"Hey, Captain?" he heard Hussein's voice as his first officer watched his screen with some concern.

"Yeah?" he replied, shifting his eyes toward the younger man.

Hussein's hands danced across the haptic interface of his computer. "Long range sensors have detected something just beyond the Mass Relay," he told his Captain. "Looks like a ship."

Talbot stood from his chair and made his way to his first officer's, concern etching his aged features. _What was it?_ he wondered. He looked down at the holographic screen, at the readings his ship's sensors were giving him, a small, red dot floating several kilometres from the Mass Relay. "Who are they?" he asked Hussein. "Are we close for a visual?"

"Negative, Captain," Hussein shook his head. "We won't make visual contact for a while. You want me to hail them?"

"Do it." They could be in trouble. Maybe their drive core had broken down, and they were stranded. Or maybe they've been attacked, God knows he's seen enough of ANN to know about the Geth attacks in Alliance space. Or maybe…

"Sir!" came Hussein's voice again, this time laced with a hint of panic, as if he were trying to keep his calm. "We've got incoming, two more ships have dropped out of FTL!"

Talbot saw the two other dots blink into existence on the screen. "Show me," he ordered when he noticed these ones were close enough for a visual. Hussein's hands worked overtime, until the dots on the screen became two vessels the size of frigates: a batarian model, and an old turian vessel he'd not seen since during the First Contact War, thirty years ago. For a moment he wondered what the hell batarians and turians were doing surrounding his ship, and then a dread thought came to him, one which in his many years of being a starship captain he has been lucky enough never to come across until now, of all times.

Pirates.

"Sir, they're hailing us," Hussein told him, trying to keep it together.

"Put them on," ordered Talbot. "This is Captain James Talbot, MSV Albuquerque. State your business," he demanded, trying to sound brave, as if encountering pirates were an everyday occurrence.

"_Human vessel,"_ replied a batarian voice from his comm. _"You will power down and prepare to be boarded. If you don't, you won't like what'll happen to you."_

And with that, the pirates cut the channel, leaving the Captain of the Albuquerque to ponder his next move. This was his last run, he was supposed to retire with his wife to a quiet little colony, and he was supposed to provide a future for his grandchildren. Talbot cursed the unfairness of the universe that very moment, but he'll be damned if he was just going to roll over and let these pirates steal from his grandkids.

He'll resist. He was outnumbered three to one, and their guns were bigger than his, but he'll not go down without a fight. And maybe he'll take one of them down before they disable his ship.

"Send the distress signal. Power up the main gun," he ordered Hussein, referring to the defensive mass accelerator cannon built into his ship, a mere pop gun compared to what his assailants may have, but it'll have to do. And who knows…maybe someone would hear their call for help and send in the cavalry. Right now, anyone would do for him, be it the Alliance, the turians…maybe even this new human Spectre he keeps hearing about.

"And move toward the ship guarding the Relay, we'll try and take it out and pass through into Citadel space!"

_And may God have mercy on us all._


End file.
